Yesterday was opening day of the Dungeness Crab season on the Oregon Coast. We wandered around the Bayfront in Newport Sunday; crab pots were in abundance in anticipation of the day.
I loved seeing the colorful crab pots lined up everywhere:
What a great day at the Bayfront, with the sense of excitement and anticipation for this late season to start. Wish I had been there to see the boats come back in with their hauls!
This gull is not as cheeky as the parrot(s) in Michelle Weber’s original WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge: Cheeky post, but it still has its own measure of attitude. At the very least, this gull makes me smile.
Drifters, nomads, and even the state of impermanence: this week, share your photos of transient. ~Andrea Badgley, The Daily Post.
A leaf, a literal drifter. On its way out to sea or working its way back to shore? Seen floating, lazily, in this inlet. Calm, mellow transient.
Playing around with depth of focus is always a lot of fun. While I would love to take a fabulous landscape photo with everything clear and in sharp focus, more often I enjoy switching to a more shallow depth of focus, with the foreground being the subject and the expected subject being blurred.
And a couple with greater depth of field:
Check out the other responses to this week’s photo challenge here: Weekly Photo Challenge: Out of Focus.
This challenge really struck a chord with me. The evanescence – fleeting existence – of the tableaus I find on the beach is part of their charm and attraction for me. Here are a few more Oregon Coast still lifes:
See the rest at Weekly Photo Challenge: Evanescent.
More pics, as promised, of the fabulous Oregon Coast – specifically, Newport.
Shell Mountain at The Fish Peddler in Bay City, Oregon. It’s always an impressive sight when driving along the 101 on the Oregon Coast. I learned that the best shells are replanted and reseeded in the company’s oyster beds to provide for continued sustainability. Pretty remarkable!
Here’s a short news story on a similar process of recycling shells in Chesapeake Bay:
The Challenge:
This week, share a photo of a satisfying pairing from your own life….You can mix and match places, people, objects, and activities that represent your idea of a harmonious, pleasing combination. ~Ben Huberman, The Daily Post
Bright leaf, beachy grasses, feathers, sand. I love how these found objects create a unified whole.
Weekly Photo Challenge: A Good Match
This challenge was a bit difficult for me – only because it was hard to narrow it down. Ben, in his WordPress post, says this about gracefulness: “Gracefulness is a tricky quality — it manifests itself as an effortless, subtle harmony between a subject and its environment.”
I often find this harmony at the beach…in the motion of the waves, for instance, or in the architecture of one of the many bridges or in one of Oregon’s beautiful lighthouses. Finally, though, I settled on this walkway, outside Newport’s Visual Arts Center. Until I read Ben’s post, I didn’t realize that one reason this spot appeals to me is the effortless harmony between the lampposts and the walkway: they are part and parcel of it. 
The rhythm, repetition, and scale of the lampposts, as well as the material from which they are made, fit in perfectly with their location near the ocean, with its own rhythm, repetition, and scale. I want to go back.
Weekly Photo Challenge: Graceful
Ambience is the atmosphere of one’s surrounding environment….Things like light, temperature, smell, sound, and sometimes taste, all work together to create ambience. ~The Daily Post, Jeff Golenski
The grounds at this restaurant create exceptional ambience. Yes, there is warmth and light, but the ocean right at its edge provided instant ambience for me.
